Chinese scientists claim to have cured a 59-year-old man who suffered from type 2 diabetes.
The patient underwent a type of cell therapy in 2021 and has not had to take medication since, The Sun reports.
"This represents a significant advance in the field of diabetes therapy," said Professor Timothy Kieffer, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, who was not involved in the study.
The patient was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes more than 25 years ago and has faced various complications.
Even though he had a kidney transplant in 2017, he lost almost all of the function of his pancreas, which regulates blood sugar levels.
As a result he relied on insulin injections, which he received several times a day.
Scientists in Shanghai, China, took the patient's blood cells to create stem cells, which were then converted into cells that produce insulin, which keeps blood sugar levels under control.
These cells were transplanted into the patient in July 2021, and within 11 weeks he no longer needed insulin injections.
He gradually began to reduce his blood sugar control medications and 12 months after the intervention he stopped taking all of these medications.
"The examinations we did after the intervention showed that the patient's pancreatic function was effectively restored and his kidney function returned to normal," said Hao Yin, from Changzheng Hospital in Shanghai, who also noted that such results show that this treatment can prevent the progression of complications that occur in the body as a result of diabetes.
Professor Kieffer said this is the first time stem cell therapy has been used to treat type 2 diabetes.
"Our technology has advanced and broken the boundaries in regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes," said Yin.
The team now hopes to use this therapy in other diabetes patients.
The research was published in the journal Cell Discovery.
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